Return to Dragon Planet: Book one of the Dragon Planet Trilogy

by S A Robertson

  Blake groaned again. The voice had startled him, sending another ripple of agony up through his neck and back. He shot a look across to the open door. Skreet had sidled into the room almost as silently as the elf had done. “Skreet! I’m sure you’re doing it on purpose.”

  “Hey, I’m sorry, okay? I let you sleep in at least.”

  “Why? What time is it?”

  “Seven.”

  “Seven! Jesus. That’s only a half hour past sunrise.”

  “It’s late for a goblin. Most of the time we never even see sunlight.” Skreet nodded at the bottle again. “So, where’d that come from? That’s elven glass.”

  “How the hell do you know that?”

  “I told you, I used to deal in antiques before I met you.”

  “Aren’t elven artefacts illegal off Terevell?”

  “So are a lot of things. Worth a pretty penny though. That’s right, isn’t it? Pretty penny…”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  Skreet grinned, showing off a calamity of uneven, brown teeth. “There! You see? I do listen.”

  With another groan, Blake began to try to pull himself up. As he did so, the empty bottle of whisky he had consumed rolled off his blanket. It took Skreet to hop forward and catch it before it smashed.

  “Ah! Boy! You really hit the bottle again last night.”

  Blake offered Skreet another hard, side-look. “It helps me sleep.”

  “That I can vouch for.”

  “And you’re right. The bottle is elven. Given to me by an elf, too.”

  “An elf? What elf? You can’t stand elves.”

  Blake sighed. “She came to the offices. She had a proposition for me. And she left me the bottle. Its waters, from Terevell.”

  With wide eyes, Skreet turned his attention back to the glass. He whistled. “Waters from Terevell. She gave you that. Why?”

  “It’s a long story,” Blake murmured, and even as the goblin switched his attention away from the bottle back to Blake, he found himself reluctant to divulge the details of the meeting.

  Eventually, though, he sat back into the relative comfort of the couch and said, “Okay…this is the deal…” And Blake recounted, to the best of his dubious memory, what Nyara had wanted with him.

  By the time Blake had finished, Skreet had moved to the desk. He had the bottle in his hand, tilting the glass so the liquid inside caught the light spearing through the skylight. Although it was faint, there was a fairy-like glimmer to the water inside.

  “Dragons,” the goblin said, almost to himself. “I ain’t never seen one, except in images and holo-rooms.”

  “Yeah, well, believe me, you’re better off for it.”

  Skreet looked up. “How many kinds are there, Blake? You know?”

  “I’m not sure anybody does. Six. Seven. All across Terevell.”

  “And them crimson wyrms… they’re the worst, right?”

  “So they say.”

  “But you’re not going to help her. The elf, I mean?”

  “Why should I? That part of my life is over. It’s done with.” With another wince, Blake unfolded himself from the couch. His head rewarded him with yet another bark of pain, and he planted a hand unsteadily against the wall. He ignored Skreet’s concerned look, somehow managing to straighten, limping his way across the office to a wardrobe in the corner. The doors slid open as he approached.

  “Still,” Skreet muttered. “A crimson wyrm. The worst of them all. Must be terrifying to have one o’ them coming at ye, right?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Blake unhooked a new shirt from the rotating hook. “I’ve never seen one.”

  “But weren’t it a crimson wyrm what…you know…your wife?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is it the same one?”

  “So I’m told.”

  “And now this is a chance for revenge, I s’pose. Since ye never had the chance before.”

  Blake stopped trying to unfold some socks and turned back to Skreet. “What is this? You working for the elf now?”

  “No. No, we goblins don’t like elves so much neither.”

  “That’s what I thought. And I told her I wouldn’t do it. So that’s the end of it…”

  “Except, if there’s real good money involved…”

  “Skreet!” Blake snapped. “This isn’t about the money, okay? And it’s not about revenge. Besides, you ever faced down a dragon. Any idea what that takes?”

  Skreet shook his head, sheepishly. “You know I don’t.”

  “Exactly.” Blake threw down the socks and began to pull his shirt up over his head, trying to stop himself shouting out in pain. He didn’t get far. The grip of agony was too much, and the shirt was tangled up in his arm and wound about his shoulder. Skreet bustled over to help, pulling the shirt free. When he was done, his big, globe-like eyes fixed on the patch of scarring forming an uneven map across most of Blake’s left side. These were not new wounds. Not caused by the brawl from the previous night, even though the bruises had come out in deep purples and yellows and greens. These were burn scars, running from Blake’s abdomen all the way up to his throat.

  “Why ye never have them scars removed, Blake?” Skreet asked then, as Blake took a moment for the pain to ease off before he even thought about his socks.

  “The burn marks?” Blake shrugged wearily. “I suppose I wanted them as a reminder.”

  “A reminder of what?”

  “Or punishment maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Do you think if you drank the waters, they’d go away?”

  Blake glanced to the bottle again. “I don’t think so. I’m not sure.”

  “Well, maybe you should drink them anyhow, eh? Ye can’t go around like this for much longer whatever ye do. And ye said yourself ye can’t afford a bone doctor.”

  Blake thinned his lips. The waters could probably go some way to paying off his debt, if only he could find the right buyer. But that was the problem. Anything that was taken from the world of Teverell had become sacred now. Dealing in even the most mundane of goods from the Dragon Planet was considered just as odious as selling elephant tusks or rhino horn had been on Earth centuries before.

  “I’m going to take a shower,” Blake said, tearing his eyes away from the bottle. “Then, we should have breakfast.”

  “Oh. Sure. There’s a good little place opened up off Xuthu Lane. They sell…”

  “I’m not eating anything with more than four legs, okay?”

  Skreet grumbled. “Ye never try new things.”

  “We’ll go to Grenn’s. Full dwarfish breakfast. My treat.”

  2

  The café was a throng even so early in the morning. It was mainly packed with dwarfs, who were rowdy as usual, drinking Syresene Ale even though the sun had hardly been up an hour. They ate their food as if it was the last meal they were going to have in a month. Blake and Skreet pushed through the doors and a few of them pinned the goblin with an unfriendly stare. Dwarfs had little love for goblins after various ancient wars and territorial disputes. But now such enmity had cooled and manifested in mere distaste. That’s why Skreet and Blake were canny enough to keep out of any dwarfish party if they knew what was good for them. Dwarfs not only lacked a sense of humour they also lacked temperance. All it took was one misguided comment and the place could descend into a riot.

  “Let’s sit here,” Blake told Skreet as they worked their way to a side booth at the end, close to one of the back windows. It looked out onto a market square where tents and tables were being erected for the day’s business. Blake eased himself onto a seat gingerly while Skreet hopped up opposite him. Once perched, the goblin brushed a little clawed hand over the table where a graphic of the menu sprang up. A dwarf with a long, ginger beard and a leather apron was declaring the benefits of a healthy dwarfish diet. Subtitles crawled under his feet as he pointed to a large menu floating at his side.

  “The scorpion feet look good,” Skreet mused. “Or maybe I’ll have the roaste
d moth instead.”

  Blake made a face. “Oh yeah. I forgot Grenn’s started catering for goblins too. How can you eat that stuff?”

  “What? You say that every time. Where I come from, Garullan Moths are a great delicacy. They’re not easy to cook either.”

  “Just don’t get any moth dust on my plate like you did last time.”

  Skreet waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, leave me alone. And I’ll have blue cockroach milk, too. Just for a change.”

  Blake shook his head and glanced out of the window. Rising beyond the market stalls were various corporate buildings and A.I. designed scrapers. They had grown up at an astonishing rate since humankind had arrived in the Aetorean System, now over a century and a half ago. The old ones had been constructed by humans. These contrasted with the more obdurate, squat, box-like edifices that had been built by the dwarfs and their metal golem automatons. Dwarfish money had really transformed Miria when they had begun to mine the nearby Ryger Asteroid Field, the seams of Imperial Gold a human discovery not long after they had arrived. At first, the dwarfs had resented human trespass into the area, and there were the usual threats of war. But when many of the mining rites were sold off to the more powerful dwarfish clans, the resentment bubbled down to a begrudging acceptance. Now most of Miria was owned exclusively by powerful human or dwarfish corporations. There was certainly a lot of wealth sloshing about the place, Blake thought. At least, controlled by some very powerful individuals in their palaces and mansions off-world. It put him in mind of his conversation with Nyara. He wondered, once again, who was financing her expedition to hunt for dragons and what interest they might possibly have in doing so.

  “Blake!” A voice then boomed. Shaken from his thoughts, Blake turned to find a squat, shambling figure approaching their table, but unlike his encounter with Nyara, the dwarf was hardly stealthy. His pungent smell of cooking grease, stale pipe tobacco, and sweat would prick most nostrils a few feet away. That was, had the bar not been thronged with more than a dozen of his own kind already.

  “How the Great Garvash are you!”

  Blake smiled. It was Grenn, the owner of the café, and one of the first dwarfs Blake had known since his arrival as a boy. Being a creature of habit, Blake also ate at Grenn’s establishment whenever he could, and the two of them had grown into fine friends.

  “Hey, Grenn. How’s tricks?”

  “He means, ‘how are you?’” Skreet explained, still poring over the menu. “He doesn’t expect you to actually do any tricks.”

  “Yes, yes,” said the dwarf casting an impatient look at Skreet. “I know what he means, goblin. Thank you very much. And I’m fine, Blake. Business is good. They’ve just established mining rites on the Luterrian Cluster, did you hear? Big contract. Lots of new faces.” The dwarf glanced over his shoulder to the group of dwarfs at the front of the café.

  “Yeah, I know,” Blake said. “Otto’s bar was pretty packed last night.”

  “So I gathered.” Grenn turned back to Blake and considered him with a squinting eye. “And it looks like you were one of the star attractions. That’s quite a shiner you have there.”

  Blake touched the tender swelling on the side of his face. Luckily, his eye hadn’t closed up, but there was a chance he had fractured his eye socket.

  “I went a few rounds in the ring.”

  “Barely one round,” Skreet pointed out, looking up at Grenn. “Had his buttocks handed to him by an ogre, no less.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Skreet. He doesn’t need all the gory details.”

  “An ogre?” Grenn raised his tangled eyebrows. “How did that happen?”

  “Dwarfish mead,” Skreet put in again.

  “Yeah, okay, Skreet. He gets the picture.”

  Grenn shook his head. “Blake,” he muttered, disapprovingly. “I know times are tough, but if you wanted to kill yourself, just step outside the dome.”

  “Well, I figured if I got lucky, I could pay off a few debts, you know?”

  “To Grubs Daily, you mean?”

  “Uh huh. You haven’t seen him around here lately?”

  “No, I haven’t. But it’s not as if you’re going to pack up and leave any time soon, is it? He knows where you work.”

  “I guess so.” And Nyara briefly flitted into Blake’s thoughts again.

  “Anyway,” said Grenn, “what will it be? I’ll throw in your drinks for free. How’s that sound?”

  “That sounds like music to my ears,” said Blake. “And I’ll have the Goldhorn steak with a strong cup of coffee. He’ll have the moth.”

  “And cockroach milk!” Skreet added hurriedly.

  “Coming up,” said Grenn, and he hastened away into the noise and smoke.

  “He’s right, you know,” Skreet said then, when Blake had unravelled a napkin and a pair of utensils.

  “About what?”

  “About Grubs. He’s going to come looking for ye soon enough. And it’s not as if he won’t be able to find ye, is it?”

  “I’ll figure something out.”

  “From where? We need work, Blake.”

  “By which you mean the dragon thing, I expect.”

  “No. I wouldn’t push ye into that, Blake. That’s dangerous work. That’s your decision.”

  “Because what I used to do…the money that bought the Clipper and paid off the rent on the hanger…that was a long time ago. I was a different man, okay? In lots of ways.”

  “I understand. But at some point, Grubs is going to want payin’. And when he does, throwing yeself in a ring with an ogre is going to seem like Crispymas.”

  “You mean Christmas?”

  “I didn’t say it right?”

  Blake smiled. “You said it fine, Skreet.” Then he turned his attention back into the street. Only to let out a whispered oath.

  3

  Despite the gathering traders and shoppers that were rapidly filling the market square, it was easy to spot the two towering figures who were pushing their way across the street. And not just because they were a good head taller than most of the humans who were quickly dodging out of their way. Dressed in dirty camo shell cloaks, and re-enforced carapace breastplates, there was no mistaking the two orcs were twins. Ugly, heavy-jawed, broken-toothed twins at that, even for their own kind. But then, Grubs Daily hadn’t picked the Pogg Brothers to win beauty competitions. They were his enforcers and debt collectors. Very effective ones too. Which was why Blake was already pulling himself out of the booth. He stumbled into a gnome waiter who was scuttling down the aisle.

  “Say! Look where you’re going, can’t you?” the gnome protested, nearly dropping the tray of tankards he was carrying to a nearby table.

  “Sorry,” Blake grunted, although his attention hadn’t left the window. He could see the Pogg Brothers were turning right toward the café.

  “What’s the matter, Blake?” Skreet looked up from the menu at the commotion. “You bustin’ for the latrine?”

  “I think we need to go.”

  Skreet frowned. “Why? We haven’t even had our…” Then the goblin followed Blake’s gaze through the window and quickly realised the problem. “Oh, crap…”

  “Exactly. Come on.”

  Blake started toward the back of the café before Skreet had even slid himself out of the booth. But with Blake’s side beginning to pulse painfully even after a few strides, Skreet had soon caught up.

  “You think they’re looking for us?” the goblin asked fearfully.

  “Not if we’re lucky.” Blake swung past another waiter and burst through some swinging doors. He found himself in the smoke and heat of the kitchens. Gnome waiters and dwarfish cooks peered up from their work. A voice cried out: “Hey! You can’t be in here!”

  Blake ignored it. With Skreet hurrying closely behind, Blake headed to a back door, bursting out into a littered alleyway with crates and bins stacked against a wall. One way led out into the market square, the other was a dead end with high walls.

  Blake hesitated
as the door swung closed behind Skreet. Perhaps if they waited for a while, the orcs would move off and they could sneak away unmolested?

  “Stay here,” he told Skreet. “I’ll see if the coast is clear.”

  “The coast?”

  “Just don’t move,” Blake said, and he slunk down the alleyway until he reached the edge of the street. With his back to the wall, he peeked around the corner.

  It was even busier than before. The noise of the market overrode most of the passing traffic. Blake swept the surrounding areas. To his relief, he couldn’t see the Pogg Brothers anywhere. It seemed they had moved off.

  He leaned back and motioned to Skreet. “Okay. Looks like they’ve gone.”

  Scampering up to join Blake, the goblin let out a breath. “That was close.”

  “You’re not kidding. Look, it’s probably best if we don’t go back to the hanger for a while. Maybe you could go over to Qualen’s for those connectors for the damper springs? I need to take a trip to Otto’s anyway.”

  “Ran out of drink, huh?”

  “Just do as I say, alright?”

  “Sure. Whatever ye like, Blake.”

  Blake chanced another look around the corner again. The orcs were still nowhere to be seen, and, satisfied they had wandered away, Blake stepped out into the bright sunshine. He was only a few paces across the street when he heard a shout go up: “Blake McCord! And where you think you going?”

  Blake abruptly stiffened. Then he slowly turned his head, part of him hoping he was mistaken by the brogue of that familiar voice. But it was just as he suspected. There was Pogg Brother ‘Number One’. He was loitering on the corner of the café, presumably while Pogg Brother ‘Number Two’ was inside. Blake hadn’t seen the creature as he had been partially hidden by a pillar.

  “Oh. Hi.” Blake tried as amiable a voice as he could muster. At the same time, he flapped his hand behind him to signal for Skreet to ease himself back into the alley. “Zlothor Pogg. How you doing?”

  The orc stepped away from the pillar. “It’s Kuthor…” he rumbled.

  “Of course it is. You’re the handsome one, right?”